In 1791, enslaved Haitians ousted their French masters and founded a nation
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
- Beatings
- Brandings
- Cutting of ears
- Cutting of hamstrings
- Not selling you away from your children and wife (if you were permitted to be married)
- Death sentences (addition)
Source: https://revolution.chnm.org/d/335/
“When slaves left the plantations or disobeyed their masters, they were subject to whipping or to more extreme torture such as castration or burning, the punishment being both a personal lesson and a warning for other slaves. King Louis XIV of France passed the Code Noir in 1685 in an attempt to regulate such violence and the treatment of slaves in general in the colony, but masters openly and consistently broke the code. During the 18th century, local legislation reversed parts of it.”
Do we know how slaves were treated in other areas ( Africa, the Middle East, South America,...)? I find it hard to believe they were any better. The fact that they tried to improve the slave's conditions doesn't prove they were a particularly cruel country for the time.
More slaves were brought to the Middle East than to America, Where are those slave's descendants? Why didn't they revolt?
I agree with your point there. In the United States, at least, you have 246 years of slavery (1619 – 1865), followed by 100 years of systemic racism, massacres, lynchings, terror, etc. (1865 – 1965), followed by continual attempts at suppression (1965 – now) and racism, though it has significantly improved. In several generations, it'll be better than it is now, so long as people don't try to forget the past.
Maybe the suggestion is that they would've eventually gained freedom, like all slaves in Western countries, and that in that alternate history, they would've fared better. After all, the black population in the USA is richer than the black population in Haiti.
Maybe they would've been taken as slaves to the Middle East. By the way, where are the black descendants of the African slaves taken to the Middle East? How do we pay them reparations?
Central American colonial history is incredibly fascinating but also very tragic.
30 years of rule under the Duvalier dynasty held Haiti back in the 20th century much, much more than the country's central debt, but I understand the urge to direct the blame the struggles to one specific cause instead.
> Haiti's first century of independence was characterized by political instability, ostracism by the international community and the payment of a crippling debt to France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti
The "crippling debt" was that Haiti was forced to compensate France for its loss of slaves.
(As was Israel, a nation founded by Holocaust survivors in a very hostile region, or Poland, bombed to shreds in the Second World War.)
In our compassion to the permanently weak, it is easy to overlook the ones who started out in similar position, but eventually outgrew their problems.
So it wasn't actually "debt" that kept the Haitians poor, but rather had to have been some kind of extortion. Was it France threatening to reinvade? Was it all countries threatening to stop trading? Was it the local elites wanting to improve their own position by enforcing on the people under them? Was it many countries threatening to invade and repossess land if mortgages weren't paid? Taking the focus off this in favor of abstract "debt" is basically giving a free pass to those responsible.
The article does go on to details, and it seems like it was the local elites wanting to improve their own position. So basically the revolution was successful but then terrible leaders came to power, similar to if they had gotten a brutal dictator instead.
Say you lead an impoverished country with no international patrons. You've just ejected slaving colonists from the island, but they do not recognize your independence.
What do you wake up each morning worrying about? Re-invasion. A local French population lobbying France to return and restore their property rights is not a minor inconvenience.
War is cruel, especially colonial war.
What they reflect is that now, the current narrative is biased, because we purposely leave outside of the story specific parts, and this can't be attributed to chance.
Assuming that's true, it's good evidence that journalists should stick to journalism and stay out of writing history. I like the NYT, but it seems like they've lately been taking themselves too seriously and wading into activities where they are not competent. IMHO, if they want to do projects like this, they should commission actual historians to write them.
They say that journalism is the rough draft of history. There's not much good in creating a rough draft for something that happened 230 years ago, and more than likely has better coverage elsewhere.
> Yes, we have rendered to these true cannibals war for war, crime for crime, courage for courage [should be “outrage for outrage”]; Yes, I have saved my country – I have avenged America. The avowal I make of it in the face of earth and heaven, constitutes my pride and my glory. – Of what consequence to me is the opinion which contemporary and future generations will pronounce upon my conduct? I have performed my duty; I enjoy my own approbation; for me that is sufficient. But what do I say? The preservation of my unfortunate brothers, the testimony of my own conscience are not my only recompence [sic]: I have seen two classes of men, born to cherish, assist and succour one another – mixed, in a word, and blended together – crying for vengeance, and disputing the honor of the first blow.
His “Liberty or Death” Proclamation: https://haitidoi.com/2013/08/02/i-have-avenged-america/
Read the article for yourself, it skips right over the 1804 Haiti massacre, which reduced the French population from thousands to nearly zero. In contemporary terminology, we call that a genocide.
> Assuming that's true, it's good evidence that journalists should stick to journalism and stay out of writing history.
Yeah, this isn't their first foray into politically motivated "historical" work. The 1619 Project somehow won a Pulitzer despite being widely panned by historians. This looks like more of the same.